Sunday, February 23, 2014

The Last Days Of A Scoundrel?

Gov. Scott Walker declined again Sunday to answer whether he knew of the existence of a secret email system in his Milwaukee County executive office.

Instead, during the appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Walker called the controversy over the release of thousands of emails "old news" and said Democrats were trying to switch the subject from his budget successes.

I guess if you consider borrowing and digging the state deeper into debt than when your administration began, kudos, well done, Mr. Walker.

"If you look at the facts out there, this is old news," Walker said. "This is about a case that was closed last March. A Democratic district attorney in Milwaukee County spent multiple years looking at all this information.

"The 27,000-plus pages of documents that were just released this week have been looked at by a team led by a Democrat from Milwaukee County, and last March he announced the end of that case, plain and simple. It's old news."

Which, when the district attorney ended his investigation, brought charges against numerous individuals working for Mr. Walker.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm's office launched an investigation in May 2010, lasting nearly three years and leading to the convictions of six individuals, including three Walker aides, an appointee and a major campaign contributor.

Documents released Wednesday linked Walker to a secret email system that was used in his county office. The documents also showed close ties between his campaign operation and taxpayer-paid staff members during the months leading to the November 2010 election for governor.

Now we have documents, discovered by further investigation, tying the governor to the secret e-mail system used for illegal campaign (and who knows what else, at this point) activities.

Walker responded, "Again, it's one of those where I point out the district attorney looked into every single one of those issues."

Wallace interjected: "But sir, you're not answering my question."

Walker said, "No, because I'm not going to get into 27,000 different pieces of information."

The governor continued, "The bottom line is a Democrat who led the district attorneys office, looked at all this, decided not to charge anything other than the individuals you mentioned, who were people who had worked for the county in the past but don't work for me today.

Wow. Talk about being detached from reality. "Decided not to charge anything other than the individuals you mentioned." So Walker does realize his former employees were charged with committing illegal acts for his benefit. (Which is probably why they're not working for him anymore.) Now, more information points to the governor being involved with and knowing about such activities. Yep, old news. Move along.

"I think that's pretty straightforward. It's one of those things where they want to keep pushing this issue into the forefront because in the end the folks running against us can't counter our positive message when it comes to the economy and creating budget surpluses."

Or, maybe those interested in the truth and honest politics just want to point out what a corrupt, lying bunch of Machiavellians the Walker administration has been all along. I'm so glad Walker has had such a positive message about the economy, but most Wisconsin workers actually want to see positives that translate to earnings, not just platitudes. And, as mentioned earlier, those "surpluses" are illusory. So, Walker's message doesn't hold water, and now we're finding out their whole operation is fraught with dishonest activities.

Mike Tate, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said there are additional questions that Walker needs to answer.

"What we continue to see is the further erosion of public trust in the governor's judgment," Tate said. "Did he know his staff was breaking the law, and if he didn't, how is that possible with what has come to light? How will his public and campaign staffs interact moving forward? And how do citizens know that their tax dollars won't be misused by mixing private-public staff going into an election year?"

Luckily some are still looking into the e-mails and documents concerning Walker's improprieties. It's highly unlikely things are going to get better for Mr. Walker.